


After Hours at the Anchor

by luckyfiftytwo



Category: Siren (TV 2018)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, also like the shortest slowburn for those who like the concept but who (like me!) Have No Patience, bc that's prob all i'll ever write, but it is Dumb As Shit, idk if this counts as angst too its not like... angsty imo, oho see i told y'all i'd be writing fic for this crackship look who's Not A Liar, which was exactly what was intented, yeah n its campy as hell but you know what they say ab cringe culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 23:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20348656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckyfiftytwo/pseuds/luckyfiftytwo
Summary: The eternal war between you and your friend's strong no homo tendencies vs. the inherent homoeroticism of you and your friend being in a bar past closing listening to music from your past





	After Hours at the Anchor

**Author's Note:**

> don't talk to be ab the title i hate titling my work

_ 2:18 am, The Anchor _

“Dude, come on, we’re closed.”

Xander had just ushered the last fisherman out the door; the only man left standing was Calvin, planted firmly at the bar.

“You gotta go,” Xander continued, taking away Calvin’s empty glass and starting to wash it in the sink.

“Look, man,” Calvin protested, slurring his words ever so slightly, “you know me. I know you. Just let me stay here til you lock up so you can give me a ride home.”

“Oh, am I giving you a ride home?”

“Can you give me a ride home?”

“Yeah, I can give you a ride home.”

Calvin smiled. Xander grumbled some half-hearted insult at him and turned away. The truth was, Xander would go to the ends of the earth for Calvin, and Calvin would do the same for Xander, but they felt the need to mask that under a facade of a vague toleration. It felt safer that way. So, Xander turned away when Calvin smiled, choosing to focus on the glasses that needed cleaning instead.

“Bro,” Calvin started. Xander acknowledged, but didn’t turn around. He could still hear the smile on Calvin’s voice, and didn’t really have the courage to see if it was on his lips. “Bro, I miss living together. Not to sound sappy and shit-”

“Oh, really? ’Cuz that shit sounds sappy,” Xander retorted, eyes staying firmly locked on the glassware.

“Shut up, dude! It’s just- it was nice.” Calvin’s voice trailed off. Xander didn’t need to see his face to know he was blushing. He could feel a heat crawl up his cheeks as well.

“Yeah, uh… it was.” So many words sat on Xander’s lips, but he couldn’t piece them into a sentence, a coherent thought even. What was it he wanted to say?  _ I miss you, too? I miss you a lot? I miss you even though I feel like I shouldn’t?  _ No. So he swallowed his words, and instead said: “But it’s also nice not having to see your stupid face every day,” and then quickly made a beeline for the backroom where they kept the cleaning supplies.

Calvin rolled his eyes back at the bar. “You still see me every day!” It’s true.

Xander tucks into the supply closet and shoves his face into his palms. He had never had a way with words, but tonight he seemed to be doing much worse than usual.

He grabbed the mop, but chose to linger in the back room a little longer. He could see Calvin in the bar, sliding his phone from hand to hand (his battery had died at around 11:30 that evening). Against his better judgement, he smiled. God, what was it about tonight? What made tonight so different from every other night, when he could just casually hang out with his  _ friend _ (nothing more!), and not have everything be so painfully  _ weird _ . He didn’t have an answer. Maybe it had always been like this.

By the time Xander had finally worked up the courage to go back to the bar, Calvin had already found his way to the jukebox, and was rifling through his pockets for quarters.

“Do you need a-” Xander called out, but Calvin cut him off.

“I have quarters, man! I know it.” He moves on to his hoodie pockets, and triumphantly pulls out a single coin. “Ha! Told you,” Calvin smiled. Xander looked away.

He could hear the whirring and ticking as the jukebox pulled up the song Calvin had selected, but kept his eyes firmly planted on the ground. A familiar guitar riff started up, and Xander could help but roll his eyes. “This song? Really?”

Calvin had already grabbed an empty bottle as a substitute microphone and was ready for his time to shine: “ _ I don’t need to be anything other / than a prison guard's son / I don't need to be anything other- _ ”

“I cannot believe you are playing Gavin DeGraw in my bar right now.”

“First of all,” Calvin started, “it’s not your bar.”

“Technically, since I’m-

“Secondly,” he continued, “this is a great song, and you know it.” Before Xander can offer an unwitty comeback, Calvin is belting again. “ _ Part of where I'm going / Is knowing where I'm coming from / I don't want to be anything other than what I've been trying to be lately... _ ”

Xander smiles- Xander beams, but not at Calvin. No, he beams at the Swiffer, because he has to keep his back firmly toward Calvin. It felt safer that way. 

“You remember that time, ’cuz you have just gotten your license and I had just gotten a fake-”

“Oh, come on, dude, this story?” Xander turns to face Calvin, who is now sitting on the bar.

“Yeah! And we drove a couple towns over to try to get some beer but like it did  _ not  _ work,” Calvin continued.

“I still think that was your fault!”

“It was your fault!” He retorted. “We agreed you’d do the talking!”

“It was your fake!”

“I had braces! It would have given us away!” Calvin laughed.

Xander had a counterpoint to make, but it got lost in Calvin’s laugh. It was a bright laugh, but still from the belly. He hadn’t heard it in a while. He missed the sound.

The pause had grown too long to continue the argument; Xander cleared his throat and went back to mopping the floors. “Whatever, man.” A beat. “What even made you think of that anyway?”

“This song was playing on the radio.”

“Bro, how do you even remember that?”

“It’s seared in my mind!” Calvin argued, tapping his temples. “It’s forever up here, whenever I hear this song.”

“Then why’d you pick this song?”

“I don’t know, dude,” he muttered. “Maybe I need a better association with it or something.”

“Oh,” Xander said, intensely mopping, “is this your better association?” He tried to keep his tone sarcastic, but it ended up coming out hopeful.

“I don’t know, yeah, maybe,” Calvin said, voice growing softer. “I mean, anything’s a better association than getting the shit scared out of us by that creepy cashier, right?” Calvin returned to normal volume, casting aside any previous emotion.

“Yeah,” Xander agreed. There was a pause. The floor was spotless. He slowly raised his eyes to meet Calvin’s.

The two looked at each other, and for a moment, there was a tether tying the two together as the bar dissolved around them, leaving the only connect to  _ anything  _ resting in the other’s gaze.

Xander quickly broke away. “So, uh, you ready to go? ’Cuz I just gotta put this mop and then like grab my keys,” he stammered.

“Yeah, dude, I’m, uh… ready when you are.”

Xander went back to the supply closet, tucking in the mop, and then grabbed his keys and jacket off a hook in the back room. He felt Calvin’s eyes on him from across the way, but didn’t dare look up. It felt safer that way.

The two exited the bar unceremoniously, and Xander locked the door behind him. At the base of the steps, Calvin stood, neck craned towards the stars. The soft silver glow from the full moon illuminated his features, and Xander couldn’t help but stare, just for a quick second.

“Come on, bro, it’s cold out here,” Xander said, darting down the steps and beelining for his car. Calvin stayed planted.

“Don’t tell anyone this,” Calvin said, “but like, one of my favorite moments is when we’re, like, out on the water, at night, and there aren’t any fish, so it’s not like we’re supposed to be doing anything, y’know? And we’re miles from shore, and you can just, like, you can  _ see _ the Milky Way. I don’t know, I just like to… stare up at it, man.”

“I know, Cal.”

He blushed. “You do?”

“You stand in the middle of the deck just like-” Xander imitates Calvin’s stance: feet wide, arms slack, face tilted flat towards the stars. “It’s hard to miss.”

Calvin laughed. “Whatever.”

They hopedp into Xander’s car. It’s probably colder in there than it is outside, but Xander still didn’t start the engine. “Can I… can I, like, tell you something? That, um…” Xander tried to say something, anything at this point, just to fill the air, but no words left his lips.

“You know you can tell me anything, bro.”

“Yeah, it’s just, it’s nothing man, it’s nothing, I’m just messing with you or whatever,” Xander said, trying to erase whatever might have happened with a too-glib tone.

“Okay, dude,” Calvin smiled.

Xander didn’t look away. “I don’t know what I’d say anyway.”

“I get it, man.”

“Yeah,” Xander grumbled, and started the engine.

The entire town is asleep by the time the pair pulled up in front of Calvin’s apartment. Calvin unbuckled his seatbelt, but didn;t open the door. He took a deep breath. “Look, the thing, where you have a thing you wanna say, but you don’t know how to say it? I get that a lot too.”

“Sure, dude,” Xander huffed.

“I’m serious, bro, like-”

The two matched eyes, and it’s the same feeling from back in the bar. Calvin smiled weakly, and Xander can’t look away.

“-like, I’m feeling it right now, bro,” Calvin finished.

They were quiet, just for a couple seconds, but it felt like a decade.

“I don’t know,” Xander muttered.

“Neither do I, dude, but when have either of us known anything, like, ever?” Calvin asked.

Xander laughed softly. “Never.”

Calvin laughed back, a little louder. Xander matched him, and it wasn’t long until the two were laughing at the top of their lungs, completely engulfed in a sudden euphoria.

The wave died down, and in the silence, Xander muttered, “I think I know something.” He rested his hand on Calvin’s cheek, fully expecting him to pull away, to stumble out of the car and leave this night to be one of many forgotten. But he didn’t.

Every muscle in Xander’s body coursed with adrenaline, every hair stood on end, every cell prickled with electricity and he wanted to turn back, to call it a night and leave, retreat back to his dark place that was uncomfortable but safe, but he can’t. He won’t.

Besides, Calvin leaned in for the kiss first.


End file.
